Queer Talk: Remembering Harvey Milk and George Moscone

Today is the 34th anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. In 1977, Milk was elected to a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming what is often said to be the first “openly gay” man elected to public office in the U.S. The two were murdered by Dan White on November 27, 1978. White was a city supervisor who’d resigned, but then wanted to regain his position. During the eleven months Milk served as a supervisor, he took the lead in passing a “gay rights” city ordinance.

San Francisco’s gay community is hosting a candlelight vigil this evening as well as a march past Milk’s former camera shop on Castro Street.

“˜Harvey Milk was a visionary whose life and death had a profound effect on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender community. He is remembered for his passion and his perseverance in his quest for equality for all people.’ said Anne Kronenberg, his former aide.

Harvey Milk’s dream for a better tomorrow filled with the hope for equality and a world without hate guides the Foundation. Harvey Milk’s ground breaking election in 1977 as one of the world’s first openly gay elected officials-and its most visible one- symbolized the freedom to live life with authenticity to millions of LGBT women and men around the world.